This is one of those Austen-derivatives, only it's one of those where Austen herself is a vampire who's been suffering writer's block for centuries and seeing no royalties while people with less than 1/10th of her talent have been making major cash profit off spin-offs of her work and has finally decided to do something about it.

Well, actually, that was the first book which I haven't read, and might do so, because apparently I missed one hell of a vampire catfight between undead Jane Austen and undead Charlotte Brontė.

Anyway, this one continues the story established in the first, with Jane's new novel being turned into a film (which bears very little resemblance to the actual text) and Jane's new boyfriend's mother comes to visit under the impression that a) Jane is planning to convert to Judaism so they can get married and b) she still hates her anyway.

While the story made perfect sense even without having read the previous, it's really more of a curiosity thing rather than something of interest in itself, because aside from the novelty aspect of it having been THE Jane Austen who wrote THE Jane Austen Novels, this could be a tale about any other immortal vampire writer with comedic personal problems.

Very mild recommend if you like this kind of classics-derivative stuff to begin with and favour the sort of vampires who have neat-o powers and no real drawbacks to their lifestyles besides the occasional bit of angst as to what they'll be doing when their mortal friends die (turn them into more vampires!).

It's actually one of the more readable versions of this kind of thing and I'd probably go and read the other books in the series (this one had a sample chapter for the upcoming 3rd) if I spot them in a library display, but I wouldn't consider getting a copy myself.

In the meanwhile, I picked up a copy of The Secret History of Elizabeth Tudor, Vampire Slayer off the new books shelf when I went to return this one. I sense sparkly, sparkly vampires ahead, if only because jewel-encrusted garments where how the upper-class Elizabethans liked to roll.